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A Special International Report Prepared by
The Washington Times Advertising Department - Published on April 21, 1999
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Advertisers
(1) Bell South
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Education key to economic and social development
While still mayor of Quito and during his campaign for President, Jamil Mahuad made education a fundamental priority of his agenda. Now that Mahuad is head of the country, he continues to focus on the reform of the country’s educational system. To demonstrate his commitment to learning, he chose Gustavo Noboa, Rector of the Catholic University in Guayaquil, as his Vice President as well as Ministers of Education who are committed to open and frank dialogue and to fixing a system that provides good educational coverage, but poor educational quality. He also submitted a comprehensive educational reform bill to Congress and gave them 30 days to approve it into law. "Education is fundamental to the growth and sustainable development of the country," says Dr. Vladimiro Alvarez Grau, former Minister of Education and current Minister of Government and Police. Although literacy is high at 90 percent, Ecuador is still concerned about the quality of education. "Students are not getting a good education. Our objective is to elevate the quality of public education." In order to upgrade quality, the government has begun to provide technical training to professors and to teach them how to teach. They have instituted modern practices of teaching in order to prepare the next generation for success. "We need to inculcate rational intelligence," begins Grau. "However, we must keep an equilibrium between rational and emotional intelligence. There is too much focus in Latin America on repetition and memorization and not enough on critical thought and analysis." Some private sector groups have met the challenge to teach more than the basic skills and to prepare students for industrial and service sector economies. Globatel, a company dedicated to interactive distance learning (IDL), has come up with a way to open higher education to large numbers of people. "Education is the only way to combat poverty and establish democracy," explains Kurt Freund, a founding member of Globatel and of the University of the Pacific in Ecuador, a university dedicated to finance and business. "Today it is possible to develop an IDL system with fluid, interactive capabilities that will allow governments to popularize education in a way that is cost-effective and feasible." Globatel has developed an IDL system that uses combined satellite and computer mediated communication. In the system, users can communicate simultaneously and interact freely and effectively, including sharing graphical and textual data via computers. Students can also interact with the instructor using regular telephones connected to the system via satellite. The phone keypads act as a keyboard for data communication, while voice communication is handled through regular handsets. Ecuador has been developing its computer and satellite capabilities for many years. Ecuanet was one of the first Internet providers in Latin America. It is also a non-profit organization under the auspices of the Banco del Pacifico. Seven years ago, Ecuanet came to life as a scientific network, much as the Internet did in the United States. Today, Ecuanet works with the University of Miami to provide access to schools, businesses and individuals. Another organization dedicated to helping improve education in the science and technology arena is Fundacyt. This is a private foundation, whose President is also the National Secretary of Science and Technology under the Vice President of the Republic. Fundacyt has very ambitious goals, including funding science and technology research and sending university graduates to get their Master and PhD degrees. Only 200 Ecuadorians living in Ecuador have PhDs, as compared to 14,000 in Venezuela. Santiago Carrasco, President of Fundacyt, sees a future in areas such as biotechnology, biological engineering, health and genetic research. As part of the arrangement, students who receive scholarships must come back to Ecuador and work in the country. While the Minister of Education is training teachers to teach better, Fundacyt is teaching students and professors how to conduct research. Part of the plan is to establish a world network for research and technology. Thirty universities in Ecuador are tied to the network. Universities receive computers, get connected to the world and develop their own databases in their primary fields, which are then used to support science and technology research. Education helps alleviate poverty and hunger and also promotes self-esteem, pride and patriotism, explains Ambassador Ivonne A-Baki. While the administration works on immediate economic and political reform, educational reform will continue to be equally important. Without an improvement in the educational system, long-term political and economic reform will be difficult to attain. |
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Table of Contents (1) President Mahuad announces new economic plan |
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